


A Strange Child

by Rinari7



Category: Guild Wars Series (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Necromancy, Probably Not Realistic Or Entirely In Keeping With Lore, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-27 09:22:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12578596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinari7/pseuds/Rinari7
Summary: A glimpse into the girl Lady Riselva de Vokuyeveth used to be.





	A Strange Child

I blinked slowly, unaware why I had awakened. Something was off. I had that niggling feeling in the back of my neck.

Aware I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, I slowly rose, pushing the covers off me. “Grenth strengthen me.” My speech was drowsy.

The night was warm, and I simply pulled on a thin sweater. On a whim, I also buckled my belt with my ceremonial dagger and my saber on it around my waist.

I took a lantern with me and slipped my shoes on as something drew me down the stairs and out the door towards the cemetary. Usually I loved it at night, the white marble mausoleums bathed in moonlight, the pure calm and peace of the resting souls under Grenth's protection in the graveyard.

 

I strolled among the gravestones, inhaling. The crisp air was refreshing, and cleared my head somewhat. Enough to notice that a mausoleum in the back seemed slightly disturbed, the light hitting it differently.  
I stepped towards the back, the hard ground silent under my feet. Upon closer inspection I found the pale, moonlike light to be actually emanating from within the construct. Quietly, I closed the shade on the lantern and drew my sabre.

Carefully peering around the corner into the tomb, I couldn't quite believe the sight that greeted my eyes.

The first thing that drew my eye was the bright, shimmering figure of someone whom I could only guess was a noble from days long past. I'd heard of ghosts appearing like this, especially the ones in Ascalon, but I'd never seen them with my own eyes. This time, however, he also had a skeleton inside the shimmering apparition, which gestured and moved its jaw as if were speaking to the girl in front of it.

All I saw of her at first was the long, jet-black hair cascading down her back, the drab, ill-fitting dress cinched with a belt and her bloody hands. A slow  _drip-drop_  of blood falling to the bare feet and the stone floor punctuated the scene.

Of course my hands flew to my mouth, turning a scream into a gasp. The lantern shattered on the floor, the glass skittering across the ground. I froze as the ghost looked up at me and the girl turned.

I did scream when I saw her eyes—a pale, ghostly shade, emitting the same sort of sick light that the ghost did.

Her voice was anything other than ghostly, though. Young, obviously young, but down-to-earth and cutting. “Go.”

I stood up straighter, despite my fear, and laid a hand on my sword. “No. I can't let you disturb those resting here. They are under Grenth's protection.” My lips moved in a silent prayer for him to intervene here, as I could feel my knees going weak.

The girl smiled, her narrow features contorting in a ghastly vision under the light from her eyes. “I meant Harold here.” She turned and nodded to the apparition.

It waved and blinked out, leaving the room in a much deeper darkness, the only light emanating from the girls' eyes, the skeleton's eyesockets, and from the pale moon outside. I dearly wished I hadn't broken the lantern.

“You're pissed at me now.”

Right, I was the one in charge here. Or supposed to be. She unnerved me more than I cared to admit. “I-I'm not pi—I am annoyed. You shouldn't be doing this.”

“Oh, Harold doesn't mind. He says it's boring in the Mists anyways. He likes talking necromancy with me. “

“You—you're a necromancer?!” It was a stupid question, in hindsight.

Her laugh is bright, a stark contrast to the rest of her. “What else would you call me? What I do? It's not like it's that uncommon.”

“For a—what, how old are you? Twelve?” Her nonchalance, the ghastly sight--it was all beginning to seem a bit surreal. It felt like I was slowly letting go of this idea about how things were supposed to be, and in doing so received my coherence back. It was a dangerous slope.

“Yes.” After a moment's pause: “Does that shock you?”

“Well, you don't usually find children raising skeletons and speaking with ghosts.”

“Oh, Harold isn't a ghost. He's passed on. I just like talking with him now and then.”

“You're summoning a ghost from the Mists? You're disturbing his rest! You should be banned from the graveyard!” My anger and fright came out in a rush. “I'm going to get the High Priestess.”

“For what?”

“I--” The bridge supports beneath my train of thought collapsed. I wasn't sure what my reasoning was. “You should see her. She's a powerful necromancer. She should deal with this.”

“What is there to deal with?” She was calm and composed in the face of my agitation, which only served to agitate me more.

“You should—I don't know! I don't know how to deal with this—you!” I could feel myself growing panicky, my gestures jerky and uncoordinated. “Just—just come with me! I'm a novice, for crying out loud! I don't know how to deal with this!”

“You're repeating yourself. But whatever you want to do. I don't like to cause trouble.”

I had already made a move to grab her arm, but the sight of her bloodied hands had made me stop, so I was happy she was going to come with me on her own.

“Wait. Just let me say goodbye to Harold.”

I stopped, feeling a bit out of my mind, but nodded. She turned, gestured slightly. The skeleton nodded once, walked back to the opened sarcophagus, and climbed in of its own volition before pulling the lid closed save for a small gap. The sight chilled me, but she was completely unfazed.

She turned, her face calm and composed in the light from her eyes as it slowly faded. “Well, take me to your superior.”

Suddenly it was my prerogative, and I felt a sense of both panic and calm wash over me. “You should probably get your hands bandaged first. You don't want to bleed all over the inside of the manse.”

I walked out into the moonlight, and she followed, examining her hands.

“I guess there is a bit of blood. It's been a while since I noticed it.” I could see the outline of a pentagram carved into her palm, but the sleeves covered her arms and I couldn't tell if she had inflicted other cuts or carvings upon herself higher up.

“A bit of blood?!” I couldn't recall seeing that amount of blood in a while.

“Well, yeah, it's usually about like this.”

“Usually!?” I began to make my way towards the clerics' house. “This is a normal thing for you?” I knew I sounded like an idiot, asking obvious questions.

“For me, yes.” She stopped and looked at me, her head tilted to the side. Her eyes no longer carried that ghastly light, but she had an unnerving aura to her, and aura of death, of darkness, of the unknown. “I'm not a regular kid. I learned that once I came here to the city, pretty quickly. Since you seem to find me so concerning, I will go see your authorities. I don't have anything better to do.”

I stopped and looked at her. “Where are your parents?

“I don't have any.”

“Everyone has parents. That's how you're here.”

“I know that." Her voice was filled with scorn. "But like I said, I don't have any. I never knew the people who conceived me. I was found in a swamp, and I'm on my own. I live in the orphanage, but there are too many kids for them to care. Happy now? Can I go back and talk with Harold again?”

“You should—”

“Yeah, yeah, I should be in bed at the orphanage. Tell you what, I'm gonna go. Get someone else to talk with Harold, he can tell you he likes me and I'm not disturbing his damn boring rest, and then I can come here again without a novice freaking out about it.”

She looked at her hands, lifted them as if to wipe them on my sleeve, then apparently thought the better of it and dropped them.

Now that she was behaving more like a “normal” child, I felt more in my comfort zone. Disturbing the High Priestess in the middle of the night seemed like less of a priority. I would take her to the orphanage and the whole thing would be over.

I don't know why I thought that.

 

“How does a kid like you start talking with ghosts?”

“Well, there was a drowned guy who hung out in the lake. Never passed over. I guess he liked watching the fish. I liked talking with him. Happened on accident. I nicked myself on a rock and I guess he tapped into it.”

“Tapped into... oh, the life energy from the blood.”

“Yeah. You a necromancer, too? You looked pretty freaked. I don't think you are.”

I swallowed. “No, I'm not a necromancer. I've just heard a few things from my colleagues.”

“I see.”

“So you discovered necromancy... by accident?” My tone was skeptical. No twelve-year-old could teach herself the level of necromancy necessary to call a ghost back from the Mists.

“No. Narthiv was doing it ever since I can remember. Via and Henry were always around.” Her face fell for a moment. “Well, before they were killed.”

“Wait, wait, who's Narthiv?”

“The man who raised me.”

She followed me down the street towards the orphanage. There weren't many people out and about. Streetlights cast pools of light, which we wandered through. Her hands shone under the lamps, the blood still dripping slowly onto the street, leaving a sparse trail of dark red spots.

“You should get a bandage—whatever your name is.”

“Riselva, if you must know.”

“You're idiotic enough to cut yourself up on purpose and not bring any bandages with you?”

She tilted her head down, and I saw her posture grow sullen and pouty. “It's been a while. I didn't expect to bleed that much.”

“Been a while?”

“Yeah, you think the orphanage offers necromancy classes? I did remember to protect myself.” She showed me her palms. “Narthiv was a good teacher. He was careful.”

Stopping suddenly, the girl stared at a book cart, then climbed on top of it. I could detect no wince as her hands made contact with the wood.

“What are you doing?” My surprise showed through in my voice.

She took something out of a small pouch on the belt holding her rags of a dress together around her waist. “Getting myself something to wrap my hands with.” In swift strokes of the knife—I could just make out the glint of the blade—that tore more than sliced, she cut herself two strips out of the awning hanging over the cart.

“You can't—”

“I can't what? I can't do this, just like I can't bring the ghosts of the dead back from the Mists? Give me a break. Where else am I going to get a bandage after midnight?”

I bit my tongue, narrowing my eyes. This girl was out of control, but I felt a grudging admiration for her somewhere. I put my hands on my hips, a sinking feeling telling me I was less than her equal.

Riselva sat down on top of the cart, folding the knife and putting it back in her pouch before pushing her sleeves up. I couldn't help but gasp again at that sight. Her forearms were dark with scars, crisscrossing like a badly drawn tic-tac-toe board until there was no distinguishable pattern anymore. “What the fuck have you been doing to yourself?!” I shuddered at the thought of what I might receive as an answer to my question.

She looked down at herself, then back at me. “What? You mean besides what I've always been doing? What you just saw me doing? Nothing.” She began to wrap the cloth strips around her right hand first, up her wrist some and then back down.

“Hey, can you tie this off for me?”

Still somewhat in shock, I stepped forward and made a clumsy knot. Shadows played across her features, which were actually rather pleasant when seen in the right light. If the girl were a noble, she'd grow up to be the talk of the Reach—or at least the talk of the more well-off. I'd have bet a fair amount on it.

“You're telling me you've—” I stumbled over the words “—summoned ghosts that many times?” Smartly, I tugged the sleeve down over her arm.

“Well, ghosts, shadow fiends, minions...” She glanced up, like she was counting in her head. “I've reanimated a lot of stuff.”

“You're only twelve!”

“I had a good teacher. Grew up doing it. It was like breathing, almost.”

She began to wrap her left hand. The canvas made a terrible bandage, and was probably unsanitary, but it would at least keep her from losing more blood.

“Who teaches a kid to reanimate things?”

“A necromancer. One who doesn't have anything else to entertain a curious little kid with, maybe. He had lots more scars. My collection is puny compared to his.” She spoke of her scars with a strange mixture of pride and shame. “Tie it, please?”  
I would have scowled at her rudeness as she held out her other hand, but the intonation of her voice made it a question, so I refrained.

“Thanks.” She pushed herself off the edge of the cart without so much as a grimace. I wasn't sure if she was truly that stoic or if her hands were simply so damaged as to be numb to pain.

The girl started back on the road towards the orphanage, without glancing back to see if I followed her. I didn't know why I did follow her, actually.

 

When I caught up with her, she was murmuring to herself. “I wish I could bring back Via. Via and Henry.” A heavy sigh came, followed by the grinding of teeth. Her tone was pained as she continued. “I've never seen anyone create anything like Via or Henry. They weren't puppets on strings. I could talk with them, they understood, they protected me. No mental connection like I had to keep with the skeleton before Harold came back to take control.”

She glanced at me, surprise flitting across her face, then looked down at her hands again, blinking.

“They killed him. I hated them for it.”

I stop and stared at her. “Who killed whom? Whoever Via and Henry are...”

Her voice sounded slightly shaky, hesitant. “Group of adventurers. They killed Narthiv. Elementalist, warrior, guardian, thief. They found me, dragged me back to this stinking city with them. Heard them talking about it over the campfire when they thought I was asleep. Speculating that I might be the 'crazed hermit''s slave. Joking about how he choked and withered when they 'offed' him.”

She sniffled, once and once only. “I wasn't his slave. He cared for me, he taught me everything I know. He was like a father and we were happy. They fucked it up. Killed Via and Henry, too.”

The venom spewing from the young girl's mouth took me aback. I didn't dare interrupt for fear of what she might turn on me. The look in her eyes, her posture, everything screamed “girl on the rampage” and it scared me more than seeing her in the ghastly light I'd first met her in.

“I don't know what they thought. That Via and Henry were his minions controlling me or something, maybe. Idiots. I tried telling them, but they wouldn't listen. They thought I was crazy.”

The street was suddenly fascinating. “I—I'm sorry. I just don't get—Via and Henry were—were necromancer minions?”

She turned on me, eyes blazing. “They weren't just minions! They felt. They protected me. They understood me. They were my friends. They weren't 'just' anything.”

A flash of light glinted off her cheek, then she lifted a bandaged hand to her face. “I'll find my way back on my own. Go. Go back to your bed in the temple or whatever.”

I'll never know what prompted me to lay a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, if you want to—I don't know, talk to someone or something—you can come to me. Novice Sara.”

“Gee, thanks, I'm so relieved. There's so much to talk about.” She turned to glare at me, and I lifted my hand from her shoulder more quickly than I'd like to admit. “Go back to keeping your fanatical night watch or whatever it is you do.”

I did scowl this time, at the ungrateful brat.

“If you could not butt in next time Harold and I are talking, that would be nice.” And then she scampered into the night. I didn't feel like running after her.

 

Over the next few days, I awoke often during the night, and if it squinted I could see a pale, ghastly light emanating from the mausoleum at the back of the cemetery. I taught myself to roll over and ignore it. Towards the others, I claimed I had wanted to go for a walk at night, stumbled and dropped the lantern. The High Priestess gave me a long, meaningful look once when she walked by that mausoleum, but she never said anything.


End file.
